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This puzzle had been languishing in my files for several years, because I'd run a couple of others with we/wee/Wii/etc. themes. But I thought Dan's treatment was nice — and after a few years the whole idea feels fresh again.

– puzzle by Dan Schoenholz

Last week Joel finished his third year as my summer intern, while he goes to Pomona College. His constructions are always superclean, and he manages to include some great vocabulary besides. In this puzzle I especially like IT'S OK, TWOFACE, PARASAIL, LUDACRIS, and NEW MOON. That's impressive fill for a puzzle with this much theme material. It takes careful placement of theme answers and black squares — and some serious crossword chops, too — to pull it off.

– puzzle by Joel Fagliano

I'm amazed that Damon managed to find four pairs of theme answers that would work in this puzzle. And the addition of PORT, MORT, CORP and DORR is sheer brilliance.

– puzzle by Damon Gulczynski

This is another lovely, clean construction from Brad and Doug. Most of the clues are theirs, too.

– puzzle by Brad Wilber and Doug Peterson

The Times's test-solvers found this puzzle tough. And anyone who doesn't know the BURJ KHALIFA (1-Across), as one of the testers didn't, is in for an especially rough time.

– puzzle by Julian Lim

Judging by the test-solvers' comments, the clue for 99-Down, "Pussy ___ (Russian girl group)," will raise some eyebrows. But the group's name has been much in the news for several years, including in several New York Times headlines, so I think it's fair game.

– puzzle by Pete Muller and Sue Keefer

A note about ROULADE (43D) and AGORA (51D): I've heard some people say a Monday puzzle shouldn't have difficult words like these, but I strongly disagree. Of course a Monday puzzle is supposed to be easy, but it can have a hard word or two, if all the crossings are clear. This is especially so for a New York Times audience, which tends to be educated and intelligent. A couple of hard words, if they're interesting and useful, are not a detriment at all.

– puzzle by Gary Cee

What I like about this puzzle is the unusual nature of the theme. There are no theme answers longer than seven letters. The information in the theme makes you go "huh, I didn't know that," which is nice.

– puzzle by Zhouqin Burnikel

This puzzle has been in my files for a long time, because I have a lot of puzzles with word-ladder themes, and I try to space them out. The two long non-theme entries at 3D and 34D are especially nice.

– puzzle by Patrick Blindauer

As with all of Ian's puzzles, the fill in this grid is particularly clean and lively. Also, the theme has a twist I've never seen before.

– puzzle by Ian Livengood

I'm so impressed with every crossword Patrick constructs — fresh, interesting vocabulary, with no junk. He makes constructing seem effortless, which it definitely isn't. His clues are excellent, too. My favorite one here is 35A.

– puzzle by Patrick Berry

In retrospect, I'm not sure why I accepted this puzzle. Jeff can't construct worth a damn... oh, hi Jeff! Just kidding, of course. You've turned into a first-rate constructor in a very short time. My favorite entries here are 1A, 17A, 37A, 59A, 62A, 64A, 11D, 25D, and 35D. That's a lot of nice stuff! My least favorite are 26A, 2D, 10D (which isn't made anymore), and 60D. Overall, though, the pluses far outweigh the minuses.

– puzzle by Jeff Chen

The Monday through Thursday puzzles this week were used last Saturday at the 6th annual BAC Fill crossword tournament in Oakland, Calif. Each year all the money raised at the event goes to benefit Families of SMA, which is dedicated to finding a treatment and cure for Spinal Muscular Atrophy. More info can be found at www.bayareacrosswords.org.

– puzzle by Ed Sessa

As you probably noticed, the grid is an atypical 16x15 squares, in order to accommodate the theme. I'm happy to run any sort of unusual grid size like this as long as there's a good enough reason and readers get their usual amount of crossword solving.

– puzzle by Peter A. Collins

I don't usually run rebus themes on Wednesday, but every once in a while I make an exception. It keeps solvers from getting complacent. This rebus element is pretty easy, so the puzzle felt Wednesdayish to me. Still, I'm expecting complaints from newbies who don't usually do Thursday (or later) puzzles and have never encountered a rebus in a crossword before.

– puzzle by Paul Hunsberger

A theme like this lives or dies on the naturalness and humor of the theme examples. I thought these were pretty good.

– puzzle by Michael Blake

Mangesh Ghogre, of Mumbai, India, is making his debut with today's puzzle. How he and Doug divided up the construction job I don't know. The two pairs of stacked 15s are pretty nice, I think, although three of the four 15s have appeared in Times puzzles before (17A once, 48A twice, and 45A three times). But it's been awhile since they've appeared, and the clues for them are fresh, so I hope solvers will not remember them or at least not mind.

– puzzle by Mangesh Ghogre and Doug Peterson

With just 58 words, this grid design is an eye-opener. My favorite entries in it are 6A, 38A, 14D, 20D, 23D, 29D, and 34D. I didn't care so much for ADSORBS, BCS (especially that), SONDE, and one or two other things. But overall this is pretty handsome.

– puzzle by Tim Croce

My favorite theme answer here is THE THREE R'S, especially as R'S are a fun thing to roll. I edited this puzzle on a plane ride to Iowa two weeks ago, fact-checking a few clues once I got back.

– puzzle by Susan Gelfand

I'm astonished by the amount of theme material Kevin managed to wedge into this puzzle, some of it even stacked and/or crossing other theme entries. At the last minute, just before editing, I decided this puzzle needed a theme "explainer," so the circled E and T were my idea. The E was already in place. The center-right and lower-right sections of the grid were revised to get the circled T in a symmetrical position.

– puzzle by Kevin Christian

"Word before" and "word after" sorts of themes have become overdone, I think. This one, though, I think is particularly pretty because the key word combines with both halves of the other theme entries ... and there are six of them, not four. Very impressive.

– puzzle by Victor Fleming and Bonnie L. Gentry

I met Tom Pepper and Victor Barocas when I was in Minneapolis two weeks ago. There is a surprisingly large crossword-constructing community there. This puzzle's theme is first-rate, I think.

– puzzle by Tom Pepper and Victor Barocas

I think Pete intended this puzzle as a Thursday, but as much as I liked the theme, I didn't think it was powerful enough to devote an entire puzzle to. For this to be a "themeless" puzzle, though, my rule is that the grid has to have 72 or fewer entries, and Pete's original grid had 74. So my colleague Frank Longo revised the construction. The last black square in the sixth row used to be one square higher, and its symmetrical mate in the lower left was one square lower.

This shift lowered the word count by the necessary two words. Then Frank reworked the upper-right and lower-left corners accordingly. The result turned out great, I think — a themeless puzzle with a mini-theme!

– puzzle by Peter A. Collins

Judging by comments on the blogs, you either love Joe Krozel or you hate him. I lean more towards the former. Joe is always pushing the envelope, in this case with a super-low word count. As in most puzzles of this sort, there are compromises — as with NINS, D'ALENE, AT US, RUNTIEST, and TREEN crossing TREES.

On the other hand, the grid has a lot of great entries — PAW PRINT, SCHOOLMATE, TIME SINK, SHEESH, MILLIONTH, WENT SOUTH, BIG BANG crossing BIG BANK, and both 15-letter entries. I wouldn't want every themeless puzzle to push the envelope like this. But once in a while? Absolutely.

– puzzle by Joe Krozel